Heirs property is family land and housing passed down without a clear legal title — leaving longtime owners unable to sell, borrow against, repair, or defend the property, and vulnerable to losing it entirely. It is one of the least-measured drivers of generational wealth loss in American cities.
CityWork is building the data foundation for the Richmond Heirs Property Network: identifying how many properties across the Richmond region most likely face heirs property or are at risk of it, whether they are homes or land, what they are worth, where they concentrate, and the characteristics of the neighborhoods most affected.
All parcel-level data from this work remains internal. Public findings are aggregated to prevent exploitation by real estate speculators.